MARCH 19TH

POOR RICHARD'S ALMANACK

No Wood without Bark.

— Benjamin Franklin,1741

AMERICANREVOLUTION.ORG

DOMESTIC MEDICINE

CHAP IV.

OF AIR.

UNWHOLESOME air is a very common cause of
diseases. Few are aware of the danger arising from it. People
generally pay some attention to what they eat and drink, but
seldom regard what goes into the lungs, though the latter proves
often more suddenly fatal than the former.

AIR, as well as water, takes up parts of most
bodies with which it comes into contact, and is often so replenished
with those of a noxious quality, as to occasion immediate death.
But such violent effects seldom happen, as people are generally
on their guard against them. The less perceptible influences
of bad air prove more generally hurtful to mankind; we shall
therefore endeavour to point out some of these, and to shew from
whence the danger chiefly arises.

AIR may become noxious many ways. Whatever
greatly alters its degree of heat, cold, moisture, &c. renders
it unwholesome: For example, that which is too hot dissipates
the watry parts of the blood, exalts the bile, and renders the
whole humours adust and thick. Hence proceed bilious and inflammatory
fevers, cholera morbus, &c. Very cold air obstructs the perspiration,
constringes the solids, and condenses the fluids. It occasions
rheumatisms, coughs, and catarrhs, with other diseases of the
throat and breast. Air that is too moist destroys the elasticity
or spring of the solids, induces phlegmatic or lax constitutions,
and disposes the body to agues, or intermitting fevers, dropsies,
&c.

WHEREVER great numbers of people are crowded
into one place, if the air has not a free current, it soon becomes
unwholesome. Hence it is that delicate persons are so apt to
turn sick or faint in crowded churches, assemblies, or any place
where the air is injured by breathing, fires, candles, or the
like.

IN great cities so many things tend to pollute
the air, that it is no wonder it proves so fatal to the inhabitants.
The air in cities is not only breathed repeatedly over, but is
likewise loaded with sulphur, smoke, and other exhalations, besides
the vapours, continually arising from innumerable putrid substances,
as dung hills, slaughter-houses, &c. All possible care should
be taken to keep the streets of large towns open and wide, that
the air may have a free current through them. They ought likewise
to be kept very clean. Nothing tends more to pollute and contaminate
the air of a city than dirty streets.

IT is very common in this country to have
church-yards in the middle of populous cities. Whether this be
the effect of ancient superstition, or owing to the increase
of such towns, is a matter of no consequence. Whatever gave rise
to the custom, it is a bad one. lt is habit alone which reconciles
us to these things; by means of which the most ridiculous, nay,
pernicious customs, often become sacred. Certain it is, that
thousands of putrid carcasses, so near the surface of the earth
in a place where the air is confined, cannot fail to taint it;
and that such air, when breathed into the lungs, must occasion
diseases. In most eastern countries it was customary to bury
the dead at some distance from any town. As this practlice obtained
among the Jews, the Greeks, and also the Romans, it is strange
that the western parts of Europe should not have followed their
example in a custom to be truly laudable.

BURYING within churches is a practice still
more detestable. The air in churches is seldom good, and the
effluvia from putrid carcasses must render it still worse. Churches
are commonly old buildings with arched roofs. They are seldom
open above once a week, are never ventilated by fires nor open
windows, and rarely kept clean. This occasions that damp, musty,
unwholesome smell which one feels upon entering a church, and
renders it a very unsafe place for the weak and valetudinary.
These inconveniencies might, in a great measure, be obviated,
by prohibiting all persons from burying within churches, by keeping
them clean, and permitting a stream of fresh air to pass frequently
through them, by opening opposite doors and windows.

WHEREVER air stagnates long, it, becomes unwholesome.
Hence the unhappy persons confined in jails not only contract
malignant fevers themselves, but often communicate them to others.
Nor are many of the holes, for we cannot call them houses, possessed
by the poor in great towns, much better than jails. These low
dirty habitations are the very lurking-places of bad air and
contagious diseases. Such as live in them seldom enjoy good health;
and commonly die young. In the choice of a house, those who have
it in their power ought always to pay the greatest attention
to open, free air.

THE various methods which luxury has invented
to make houses close and warm, contribute not a little to render
them unwholesome. No house can be wholesome unless the air has
a free passage through it. For which reason houses ought daily
to be ventilated, by opening opposite windows, and admitting
a current of fresh air into every room. Beds, instead of being
made up as soon as people rise out of them, ought to be turned
down, and exposed to the fresh air from the windows through the
day. This would expel any noxious vapour, and could not fail
to promote the health of the inhabitants.

IN hospitals, jails, ships, &c. where that cannot be conveniently
done, ventilators should be used. The method of expelling foul,
and introducing fresh air, by means of ventilators, is a most
salutary invention, and is indeed the most useful of all our
modern medical improvements. It is capable of universal application,
and is fraught with numerous advantages, both to those in health
and sickness. In all places, where numerous numbers of people
are crowded together, ventilation becomes absolutely necessary.

AIR which stagnates in mines, wells, cellars,
&c. is extremely noxious. That kind of air is to be avoided
as the most deadly poison. It often kills almost as quickly as
lightning. For this reason, people should be very cautious in
opening cellars that have been long shut, or going down into
deep wells, or pits, especially if they have have been kept close
covered. We have daily accounts of persons who lose thelir lives
by going down into deep wells and other places where the air
stagnates; all these accidents might be prevented by only letting
down a lighted candle before them, and stopping when they perceive
it go out; yet this precaution, simple as it is, is seldom used.

MANY people who have splended houses chuse
to sleep in small apartments. This conduct is very imprudent.
A bed-chamber ought always to be well-aired; as it is generally
occupied in the night only, when all doors and windows are shut.
If a fire be kept in it, the danger from a small room becomes
still greater. Numbers have been stifled when asleep by fire
in a small apartment, which is always hurtful.

THOSE who are obliged, on account of business,
to spend the day in close towns, ought, if possible, to sleep
in the country. Breathing free air in the night will, in some
measure, make up for the want of it through the day. This practice
would have a greater effect in preserving the health of citizens
than is commonly imagined.

DELICATE persons ought, as much as possible,
to avoid the air of great towns. It is peculiarly hurtful to
the asthmatic and consumptive. Such persons should avoid cities
as they would do the plague. The hypochondriac are likewise much
hurt by it. I have often seen persons so much afflicted with
this malady while in town, that it seemed impossible for them
to live, who, upon being removed to the country, were immediately
relieved. The same observation holds with regard to nervous and
hysteric women. Many people, indeed, have it not in their power
to change their situation in quest of better air. All we can
say to such persons is, that they should go as often abroad into
the open air as they can, that they should admit fresh air frequently
into their houses, and take care to keep them very clean.

IT was necessary in former times, for safety,
to surround cities, colleges, and even single houses, with high
walls. These, by obstructing the free current of air, never fail
to render such places damp and unwholesome. As such walls are
now, in most parts of this country, become useless, they ought
to be pulled down, and every method taken to admit a free passage
to the air. Proper attention to AIR and CLEANLINESS would tend
more to preserve the health of mankind, than all the endeavours
of the faculty.

SURROUNDING houses too closely with planting,
or thick woods, likewise tends to render the air unwholesome.
Wood not only obstructs the free current of the air, but sends
forth great quantities of moist exhalations, which render it
constantly damp. Wood is very agreeable at a proper distance
from a house, but should never be planted too near it, especially
in a flat country. Many of the gentlemen's seats in England are
rendered very unwholesome from the great quantity of wood which
surrounds them.

HOUSES situated in low marshy countries, or
near large lakes of stagnating water, are likewise unwholesome.
Waters which stagnate not only render the air damp, but load
it with putrid exhalations, which produce the most dangerous
and fatal diseases. Those who are obliged to inhabit marshy countries,
ought to make choice of the dryest situations they can find,
to live generously, and to pay the strictest regard to cleanliness.

IF fresh air be necessary for those in health,
it is still more so for the sick, who often lose their lives
for want of it. The notion that sick people must be kept very
hot, is so common, that one can hardly enter the chamber where
a patient lies, without being ready to faint, by reason of the
hot suffocating smell. How this must affect the sick any one
may judge. No medicine is so beneficial to the sick as fresh
air. It is the most reviving of all cordials, if it be administered
with prudence. We are not, however, to throw open doors and windows
at random upon the sick. Fresh air is to be let into the chamber
gradually, and, if possible, by opening the windows of some other
apartment.

THE air of a sick person's chamber may be
greatly freshened, and the patient much revived, by sprinkling
the floor, bed, &c. frequently with vinegar, juice of lemon,
or any other strong vegetable acid.

IN places where numbers of sick are crowded
into the same house, or, which is often the case, into the same
apartment, the frequent admission of fresh air becomes absolutely
necessary. Infirmaries, hospitals, &c. are often rendered
so noxious, for want of proper ventilation, that the sick run
more hazard from them than from the disease. This is particularly
the case when putrid fevers, dysenteries, and other infectious
diseases prevail.

PHYSICIANS, surgeons and others who attend
hospitals, ought, for their own safety, to take care that they
be properly ventilated. Such persons as are obliged to spend
most of their time amongst the sick, run great hazard of being
themselves infected when the air is bad. All hospitals, and places
of reception for the sick, ought to have an open situation, at
some distance from any great town, and such patients as labour
under any infectious disease ought never to be suffered to come
near the rest. A year seldom passes that we do not hear of some
hospital physician or surgeon, having lost his life by an hospital
fever, caught from his patients. For this they have themselves
alone to blame, Their patients are either in an improper situation,
or they are too careless with regard to their own conduct.